The Lamanites seized the city of Zarahemla without warning and pushed on through "the most capital parts of the land" (Helaman 1:27). According to the geographical theory of John Sorenson, the geography we are following makes that area ("the capital parts of the land") coincide with the lower central depression of Chiapas, where the speakers of the Zoquean language had long lived. They had been in the land long before the Nephites arrived. Their ancestors had been bearers of the Olmec culture in the time of the Jaredites. There is little reason to question that they were of basically the same stock as the folk followers of chief Zarahemla. Their leaders would have lost a great deal of power and privilege when the Nephite intruders took over rulership in Mosiah1's day. . . . The Chiapa de Corzo site, the largest city within the entire central depression at this time and the heart of that downstream sector, was larger and more prosperous than Santa Rosa (the proposed site of Zarahemla). [John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, pp. 196-197]